Quiet Talks about Jesus eBook

The ceaselessness of His labors those public years
suggests habits of industry acquired during those
long Nazareth years. He was used to working hard
and being kept busy. It would seem that He had
the care of His mother after the home was broken up.
At the very end He makes provision for her. John
understands the allusion and takes her to his own home.
He must have thought a great deal of John to trust
His mother to his care. Could there be finer
evidence of friendship than giving His friend John
such a trust?

Jesus was a homeless man. Forced from
the home village by His fellow townsmen, for those
busy years he had no quiet home spot of His own to
rest in. And He felt it. How He would have
enjoyed a home of His own, with His mother in it with
him! No more pathetic word comes from His lips
than that touching His homelessness—­foxes
have holes, and the birds of the air nests, but the
Son of Man hath neither hole nor nest, burrowed or
built, in ground or tree.

And Jesus knew the sharp discipline of waiting.
He knew what it meant to be going a commonplace, humdrum,
tread-mill round while the fires are burning within
for something else. He knew, and forever cast
a sweet soft halo over all such labor as men call
drudgery, which never was such to Him because of the
fine spirit breathed into it. Drudgery, commonplaceness
is in the spirit, not the work. Nothing
could be commonplace or humdrum when done by One with
such an uncommon spirit.

<u>There’s More of God Since Jesus Went Back.</u>

I have tried to think of Him coming into young manhood
in that Nazareth home. He is twenty now, with
a daily round something like this: up at dawn
likely—­He was ever an early riser—­chores
about the place, the cow, maybe, and the kindling
and fuel for the day, helping to care for the younger
children, then off down the narrow street, with a cheery
word to passers-by, to the little low-ceilinged carpenter
shop, for—­eight hours?—­more
likely ten or twelve. Then back in the twilight;
chores again, the evening meal, helping the children
of the home in difficulties that have arisen to fill
their day’s small horizon, a bit of quiet talk
with His mother about family matters, maybe, then likely
off to the hilltop to look out at the stars and talk
with the Father; then back again, slipping quietly
into the bedroom, sharing sleeping space in the bed
with a brother. And then the sweet rest of a laboring
man until the gray dawn broke again.

And that not for one day, every day, a year
of days—­years. He’s twenty-five
now, feeling the thews of his strength; twenty-seven,
twenty-nine, still the old daily round. Did no
temptation come those years to chafe a bit and fret
and wonder and yearn after the great outside world?
Who that knows such a life, and knows the tempter,
thinks he missed those years, and their subtle
opportunity? Who that knows Jesus thinks that
He missed such an opportunity to hallow forever,
fragantly hallow, home, with its unceasing round of
detail, and to cushion, too, its every detail with
a sweet strong spirit? Who thinks He missed
that chance of fellowship with the great crowd
of His race of brothers?